It's the first Thursday of the month, so please check out the January Aces article I've written for The Tennis Recruiting Network.
Bryan Koniecko of Ohio State, currently No. 1 in the ITA individual rankings, is featured today on usta.com. I hope he's right about the assumption contained in his answer to a question on his goals (emphasis is mine):
My individual goals are to keep trying to improve while I’m still at college and obviously try to win the NCAA singles title at the end of the year. Winning the NCAA could give me a US Open main-draw berth, and that would be exciting, being from New York and all. More importantly, I want to win the NCAA title as a team and finish No. 1. Since I was a freshman, we have had top-5 teams, and due to some bad luck and a couple injuries, we missed our opportunity in going to the finals of the NCAA tournament. But as a senior and a captain, winning the NCAA as a team would just be an amazing finish to a great four years.
"Could" appears to be the operative word here, as Georgia Tech's Amanda McDowell did not receive a U.S. Open wild card after her NCAA individual championship last year.
The Fed Cup begins this weekend, and with Bethanie Mattek's recent withdrawal, captain Mary Joe Fernandez has asked Julie Ditty to join Jill Craybas, Liezel Huber and Melanie Oudin for the tie with Argentina. Fernandez is blogging for usta.com, and in this entry, I was somewhat surprised to hear that she did not know Oudin. Despite the age gap with the 30-somethings, Oudin is not the only teenager in the mix. Seventeen-year-olds Julia Boserup and CoCo Vanderweghe are serving as hitting partners in Surprise, Arizona, according to this article from the Arizona Republic.
The U.S. and Argentina are in the World Group, which has 16 teams, but there are also Zonal round robins taking place in Estonia, Australia and Canada. In Quebec yesterday, Puerto Rico, with 15-year-old Monica Puig playing No. 1, defeated the Bahamas 2-1 in an opening round match. For results and information, see the Fed Cup website.
And finally, if you haven't done so yet, take a look at the free live video streaming that Front Row Tennis is providing this week at the TbarM Dallas Challenger. This afternoon I watched the third set of a battle between 2002 Kalamazoo 18s champion Prakash Amritraj and 2004 Kalamazoo 18s champion Scoville Jenkins, won by Amritraj 6-4. Tonight, two members of the 2003 Illinois NCAA championship team will be on court when Amer Delic plays Brendan Evans and Rajeev Ram takes on Michael Russell.
Bryan Koniecko of Ohio State, currently No. 1 in the ITA individual rankings, is featured today on usta.com. I hope he's right about the assumption contained in his answer to a question on his goals (emphasis is mine):
My individual goals are to keep trying to improve while I’m still at college and obviously try to win the NCAA singles title at the end of the year. Winning the NCAA could give me a US Open main-draw berth, and that would be exciting, being from New York and all. More importantly, I want to win the NCAA title as a team and finish No. 1. Since I was a freshman, we have had top-5 teams, and due to some bad luck and a couple injuries, we missed our opportunity in going to the finals of the NCAA tournament. But as a senior and a captain, winning the NCAA as a team would just be an amazing finish to a great four years.
"Could" appears to be the operative word here, as Georgia Tech's Amanda McDowell did not receive a U.S. Open wild card after her NCAA individual championship last year.
The Fed Cup begins this weekend, and with Bethanie Mattek's recent withdrawal, captain Mary Joe Fernandez has asked Julie Ditty to join Jill Craybas, Liezel Huber and Melanie Oudin for the tie with Argentina. Fernandez is blogging for usta.com, and in this entry, I was somewhat surprised to hear that she did not know Oudin. Despite the age gap with the 30-somethings, Oudin is not the only teenager in the mix. Seventeen-year-olds Julia Boserup and CoCo Vanderweghe are serving as hitting partners in Surprise, Arizona, according to this article from the Arizona Republic.
The U.S. and Argentina are in the World Group, which has 16 teams, but there are also Zonal round robins taking place in Estonia, Australia and Canada. In Quebec yesterday, Puerto Rico, with 15-year-old Monica Puig playing No. 1, defeated the Bahamas 2-1 in an opening round match. For results and information, see the Fed Cup website.
And finally, if you haven't done so yet, take a look at the free live video streaming that Front Row Tennis is providing this week at the TbarM Dallas Challenger. This afternoon I watched the third set of a battle between 2002 Kalamazoo 18s champion Prakash Amritraj and 2004 Kalamazoo 18s champion Scoville Jenkins, won by Amritraj 6-4. Tonight, two members of the 2003 Illinois NCAA championship team will be on court when Amer Delic plays Brendan Evans and Rajeev Ram takes on Michael Russell.
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